It was National Poetry Day yesterday, so this week’s choice is (partly) about a poet. It’s “In the Neolithic Age” by Rudyard Kipling.
“There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
Rudyard Kipling (1865—1936)
And every single one of them is right!”
Poem 458. In the Neolithic Age
1
In the Neolithic Age savage warfare did I wage
For food and fame and woolly horses’ pelt.
I was singer to my clan in that dim, red Dawn of Man,
And I sang of all we fought and feared and felt.
2
Yea, I sang as now I sing, when the Prehistoric spring
Made the piled Biscayan ice-pack split and shove;
And the troll and gnome and dwerg, and the Gods of Cliff and Berg
Were about me and beneath me and above.
3
But a rival, of Solutré, told the tribe my style was outré—
‘Neath a tomahawk, of diorite, he fell
And I left my views on Art, barbed and tanged, below the heart
Of a mammothistic etcher at Grenelle.
4
Then I stripped them, scalp from skull, and my hunting-dogs fed full,
And their teeth I threaded neatly on a thong;
And I wiped my mouth and said, “It is well that they are dead,
For I know my work is right and theirs was wrong.”
5
But my Totem saw the shame; from his ridgepole-shrine he came,
And he told me in a vision of the night:—
“There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And every single one of them is right!”
* * * * *
6
Then the silence closed upon me till They put new clothing on me
Of whiter, weaker flesh and bone more frail;
And I stepped beneath Time’s finger, once again a tribal singer,
And a minor poet certified by Traill!
7
Still they skirmish to and fro, men my messmates on the snow
When we headed off the aurochs turn for turn;
When the rich Allobrogenses never kept amanuenses,
And our only plots were piled in lakes at Berne.
8
Still a cultured Christian age sees us scuffle, squeak, and rage,
Still we pinch and slap and jabber, scratch and dirk;
Still we let our business slide—as we dropped the half-dressed hide—
To show a fellow-savage how to work.
9
Still the world is wondrous large,—seven seas from marge to marge—
And it holds a vast of various kinds of man;
And the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandhu
And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban.
10
Here’s my wisdom for your use, as I learned it when the moose
And the reindeer roamed where Paris roars to-night:—
“There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And—every—single—one—of—them—is—right!”
This poem expresses Kipling’s deeply-held belief that there is no single right way of writing. He never criticised other writers’ work though he had plenty to say about Liberal politicians!
The poem is in two parts, the first part beginning with the savage tribes of the New Stone Age (not strictly the setting for ice in the Bay of Biscay but Neolithic scans better), one of which boasts a tribal singer—the narrator of the story—who sings of their wars with other men and their hunting of the great beasts of the age.
A rival singer of Solutré—a notable site in Burgundy, France, where signs of over 55,000 years of Paleolithic culture have been unearthed—criticises the singer’s style and is murdered, scalped and fed to the dogs for his pains. I can’t help thinking that Kipling was mentally consigning some of his critics to the same fate…
Satisfied with his response to the critic, since his work “is right and theirs was wrong”, he is happy with his deed but in a dream his Totem corrects him from the path of arrogance, telling him that there are many ways of “constructing tribal lays” and the other ways are just as valid as his.
Time moves on and the singer, like his culture, dies and is forgotten but the spirit lives on and is reincarnated in a later, less physically demanding era: “They put new clothing on me/Of whiter, weaker flesh and bone more frail”, and he once more becomes a singer “And a minor poet certified by Traill!”
This is an entertaining side story that’s worth telling. H.D. Traill was a prominent 19th-century British critic and author who named 50 contemporary writers of the time who he considered had some talent though they could never match the legendary Tennyson in his view. He appended a slightly embarrassed postscript noting that he had omitted a promising young writer named Rudyard Kipling. The promising young writer was amused and poked fun at Traill in this poem which gently mocks those who wish to categorise or rate art.
Returning to the poem, Kipling observes that men’s behaviour has not changed much since “we headed off the aurochs turn for turn”—the advent of culture and religion has done little to abate the savagery and crudity of humankind and people are far too willing to abandon their occupation to dictate—with the benefit of ignorance as my dad used to say—how others should conduct their business or their lives.
Kipling argues that since “the world is wondrous large” and “holds a vast of various kinds of man”, there is no merit in correcting others’ behaviour according to your own ideas—it is better to consider your own. He concludes the modern part of the poem in the same way as the ancient:
“There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And—every—single—one—of—them—is—right!”
I like the poem because it has a lovely rhythm, because the message Kipling is conveying is quite different to the jingoistic racism generally assumed to be his signature tune, and because the words are so well chosen. I love “the troll and gnome and dwerg, and the Gods of Cliff and Berg”, “When the rich Allobrogenses never kept amenuenses” but most especially “And I stepped beneath Time’s finger, once again a tribal singer”.
Dwerg is a word from Old Dutch meaning dwarf, the Allobrogenses were a tribe in ancient Gaul and amenuenses are scribes.
As usual the Kipling Society has a tremendously informative page on the background to the poem. I have chosen a performance from 1993 by the late Leslie Fish on her Our Fathers of Old album. It’s not the full text of the poem but it’s a good version.